Slice of Life: Day 13 - A Spectacular Dismount ... #SOL22 #TWTBlog

I see the sign. Mom, there’s the sign. We need to put the bar up. We need to be ready.

Jack knows we have not completely mastered the family chairlift dismount. 

Ok, Jack, give me a minute. Let me shift my poles before …

Jack lifts the bar over our heads.

Ryan has learned that when the bar goes up, we go off.

I am transferring my poles into one hand.

Ryan begins to go.

I drop my poles and grab him, barely catching his coat at his shoulders.

Jack screams.

Ryan hangs – my hands struggling to hold on.

I look down.  It is a big drop.

Jack screams again and hits my shoulder, pointing forward.

I look ahead.  There is a thirty-foot concrete wall approaching. 

I look down.  I look forward. I look down.  I look forward.

Drop him.  You have to drop him.

We’ve got him.

Do it – do it now.

Drop him!

I try to register the commands of strangers coming from all directions.

I look down one last time and drop him.

I turn back to see if he is okay. 

I can’t see him.

Jack and I get off the lift.

All eyes are on us.

The silence is deafening.

Everything is in slow motion.

I see two ski patrollers race past me.

A ski attendant takes me by the arm.

I dropped him.

I saw it, he is ok.

Are you sure?

Pretty sure.

As we turn the corner it is clear that I am in worse shape than Ryan.

He is sitting on someone’s shoulders.

A crowd has formed.

He is the center of the celebration.

Mom, that was awesome.

Jack tugs at my jacket and points up.

The chairlift is stopped.

It has been stopped.

I see my husband and our friends cheering.

I look at Jack.

Next time I won’t lift it so early.

Next time …

Seventeen years later … we still have our annual family and friends ski trip out west.  This still remains the most spectacular chairlift dismount to date.

Throwback ski photo from the early years …